After working at De Anza College for 24 years in a variety of positions, administrative assistant Linda Wolf retired following the fall quarter of 2011.

Wolf said her decision to retire was motivated by having been in the working world for 43 years.

“I’ve worked so many years that I just needed some time for me,” Wolf said.

Wolf worked at several departments during her time at De Anza. She started in the word processing department where three women were responsible for all of the college’s word processing needs. After that department was turned into marketing and communications, she served as an instructional associate in the CAOS lab for a year before going to the scheduling office.

At the scheduling office she had to manually enter and keep track of which courses were in which room – a time consuming task.

“I would have to flip through all the pages to find out which rooms were available that people could move into,” Wolf said. “That was before the electronic days.”

Along with co-worker Jane Swanson, Wolf was responsible for all the data input for the final version of the campus schedule, another time-intensive job.

Despite the workload, “I liked that kind of work,” Wolf said, “it’s kind of like a puzzle to me.”

Her final move was in 2000 when she became the division administrative assistant for the Physical Science, Math and Engineering division. Wolf praised her co-workers, remembering how they helped out when a co-worker’s illness left Wolf overburdened with work.

“All I can say is they’re just really wonderful to me,” she said, “and that was the hardest part about retirement, was to say ‘goodbye’ to them.”

Wolf enjoyed having the experience of working multiple jobs.

“I was very blessed because I did really fun stuff. I mean, I loved all my jobs I had,” Wolf said. “I learned something new in each one of them, and I got to work with everybody on campus, so I got to know everybody. That was really the best part of my job over the years.”

Wolf already has plans to put her newfound free time to use. She will travel to Iowa to spend time with her 89-year-old father. After that, she plans on visiting her family in Denmark. Wolf will stay with an aunt and uncle on a farm that her grandfather owned. Having never been to Europe, she plans on visiting other nearby countries after leaving Denmark.

Besides traveling, Wolf looks forward to having time do scrapbooking, needle work and digital photography.

Other De Azna staff departures:

Maureen Gates, Support Services Coordinator, FHDA Police, 34 years service

Mike Paccioretti, Special Events Coordinator, FHDA Police, 32 years 

Eloise Alvarez, food services administrative assistant, 10 years